Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) and DMC Global (NASDAQ:BOOM) Head-To-Head Contrast

DMC Global (NASDAQ:BOOM) and Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) are both energy companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings, dividends, profitability, valuation and risk.

Volatility and Risk

DMC Global has a beta of 1.8, suggesting that its stock price is 80% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Halliburton has a beta of 0.83, suggesting that its stock price is 17% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares DMC Global and Halliburton’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
DMC Global	-3.37%	-6.84%	-2.57%
Halliburton	7.16%	18.71%	7.89%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

77.6% of DMC Global shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 85.2% of Halliburton shares are held by institutional investors. 7.1% of DMC Global shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.6% of Halliburton shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent recommendations and price targets for DMC Global and Halliburton, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
DMC Global	1	2	1	0	2.00
Halliburton	1	6	17	0	2.67

DMC Global currently has a consensus target price of $9.00, indicating a potential upside of 70.13%. Halliburton has a consensus target price of $44.05, indicating a potential upside of 32.83%. Given DMC Global’s higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe DMC Global is more favorable than Halliburton.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares DMC Global and Halliburton”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
DMC Global	$609.84 million	0.18	-$13.45 million	($0.93)	-5.69
Halliburton	$22.18 billion	1.25	$1.28 billion	$1.91	17.36

Halliburton has higher revenue and earnings than DMC Global. DMC Global is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Halliburton, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Halliburton beats DMC Global on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About DMC Global

DMC Global Inc. provides a suite of engineered products and various solutions for the construction, energy, industrial processing, and transportation markets worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Arcadia, DynaEnergetics, and NobelClad. The Arcadia segment manufactures, assembles, and sells architectural building products, including exterior and interior framing systems, curtain walls, windows, doors, and interior partitions; architectural components, architectural framing systems, entrance systems, and sun control products; sliding and glazing systems; and thermally broken steel, aluminum windows and doors, and wood doors and windows. It sells its products through a national in-house sales force for buildings, such as office towers, airports, hotels, education and athletic facilities, health care locations, government buildings, retail centers, mixed use, and multi-family residential buildings. The DynaEnergetics segment designs, manufactures, markets, and sells perforating systems, including initiation systems, shaped charges, detonating cords, gun hardware, and control panels; and perforating systems and associated hardware for the oil and gas industry. It sells its products through direct selling, distributors, and independent sales representatives. The NobelClad segment produces and sells explosion-welded clad metal plates for use in the construction of heavy, corrosion resistant pressure vessels, and heat exchangers for oil and gas, chemical and petrochemical, alternative energy, hydrometallurgy, aluminum production, shipbuilding, rail car manufacturing, power generation, and industrial refrigeration industries. It sells its products through direct sales personnel, program managers, and independent sales representatives. The company was formerly known as Dynamic Materials Corporation and changed its name to DMC Global Inc. in November 2016. DMC Global Inc. was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado.

About Halliburton

Halliburton Company provides products and services to the energy industry worldwide. It operates through two segments, Completion and Production, and Drilling and Evaluation. The Completion and Production segment offers production enhancement services that include stimulation and sand control services; cementing services, such as well bonding and casing, and casing equipment; and completion tools that offer downhole solutions and services, including well completion products and services, intelligent well completions, and service tools, as well as liner hanger, sand control, and multilateral systems. This segment also provides electrical submersible pumps, as well as artificial lift services; production solutions comprising coiled tubing, hydraulic workover units, downhole tools, and pumping and nitrogen services; pipeline and process services, such as pre-commissioning, commissioning, maintenance, and decommissioning; and specialty chemicals and services. The Drilling and Evaluation segment offers drilling fluid systems, performance additives, completion fluids, solids control, specialized testing equipment, and waste management services; drilling systems and services; wireline and perforating services consists of open-hole logging, and cased-hole and slickline; and drill bits and services comprising roller cone rock bits, fixed cutter bits, hole enlargement, and related downhole tools and services, as well as coring equipment and services. This segment also provides cloud based digital services and artificial intelligence solutions on an open architecture for subsurface insights, integrated well construction, and reservoir and production management; testing and subsea services, such as acquisition and analysis of reservoir information and optimization solutions; and project management and integrated asset management services. Halliburton Company was founded in 1919 and is based in Houston, Texas.